Moring All,
We would like to introduce to you our new (sort of) BT Fan Site, OurBattleTech.com (OBT), a site devoted to providing hard core BT players and Fan Fiction Authors with a little corner of the internet in which to expand their creative endeavours and interact with our supportive community of fan developers and collaborators.
We all love the main BT boards here and the BT community is really driven along by these great boards, but for those of us who want to bring more depth, detail and space to our Fan BT project, the BT boards, despite the great service they provide, just cannot provide for fan projects that get beyond simple text and image posting: Hence why we founded OBT. However, we all still realise the importance of the Boards here at CBT, so we all continue to frequent these boards as well, making sure we keep the CBT Fan Fiction community strong and expanding.
OBT is not just a forum, though our forum (
www.ourbattletech.com/forums) is an active little place, it is a site where our membership, including well known Fan Fiction authors like Rayo Azul, Drakensis, Blacktigeractual, Dragon Cat, Dread Mores and Blacknova, have come together to collaborate and display their creative talents for all to see and be part of.
The site, run by Knightmare - who has many years experience as a web developer - is not constrained by limited posting sizes or single threads, with each developer using as much or as little space on the boards as they need. Some use one thread, whilst others have multiple boards and threads covering their project’s development. Some projects are Alternate Universes, like the Kapteyn Universe and Shattered Dawn, whilst others are canon settings, like the Hexare Grenadiers.
OBT is also not just about writing; it is about support from people with differing skill sets, who assist each other in getting the most from each others ideas. For example, you might have a story and need more space, or additional threads, or boards - that we can do. You might want a map created for a planet, a campaign or the Inner Sphere, easy, we have people who can do that too, who are easy to reach and more than happy to help. You might need logos or art work and we have artists who can help as well. And the finished products can be easily accommodated in the downloads section (
www.ourbattletech.com/downloads), where Canon Fan projects and AU works exist side by side.
OBT also has the advantage of many projects rolling along all at once and has served as a breeding ground for cross-pollination of ideas and multiple lines of thought, expanding some ideas into areas they may otherwise have never reached. Also, the fact that there are so many dedicated BT lovers on the site (well over 100 already) means that the interest in any one story or project is hard to kill off, so writer’s block rarely becomes an issue.
Additionally, if you feel like blogging about your efforts or about Canon BT as well, we have an excellent Blog (
www.ourbattletech.com) which members have access to in order to post their thoughts.
Then there is the final step, a full blown website, like those created for Blacknova’s Kapteyn Universe (
www.ourbattletech.com/kapteyn) or Klinktastic’s Hexare Grenadiers (
www.ourbattletech.com/hexare). These have been created by Knightmare and are top of the line sites, showcasing the depth and breadth of each universe.
So, even if you don’t see the need for collaboration, or have your story well in hand, we would love to see you join the forum as a member and post your story, or even just come along occasionally and see what we are up to. It is one of the benefits of OBT that you can use as much or as little of OBT’s assistance as you feel you need, all the while having your presence benefit all the other Fan BT developers on OBT.
The additional benefit is that once you have made use of OBT to build up you story, it is easy to bring some of the finished work back here to CBT, to ensure that the place we all started our Fan Fiction writing continues to be a strong and well populated Fan Fiction Forum.
Regards
Blacknova, Knightmare and Klinktastic
